Stuart Baird (director of Star Trek: Nemesis) recently admitted that he knew virtually nothing about Star Trek, but did correct that matter after signing on to helm Trek X.

"I saw some of the movies and I looked at some of the episodes of the television series," he told Star Trek Monthly. "I didn't study-study them. I just looked at them and got a sort of sense of the series. Then I put it aside and dealt with the script that John Logan wrote."

He didn't give the movie any special treatment, but did take Star Trek's history into consideration. "I dealt with the script like I would any script for any movie," he said, "though I also knew that I needed to be open to suggestion because there's been so much Next Generation in the past and I had to take that into account."

One unique thing for Baird was that the characters were firmly established for this film. "The characters are very much set," he said. "So I had the advantage of the actors knowing their roles very well. I tried to push for some changes in the characterisations because the script is about changes for them all."

Baird kept this in mind when developing the movie. "It's a change-of-life kind of story," he said. "I would say ... that the heart of the story is the relationship between the members of the team ... what's happening is the breakup of the team. They seem to be dissipating. Everything that Captain Picard had seems to be slipping away. It's like a family coming of age and mom and dad are left on their own, except that Captain Picard doesn't have a wife with him. He really is on his own. It's sort of a heartfelt questioning of everything that he's done."

The full interview with Baird can be found in issue 102 of Star Trek Monthly.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!